Showing titles in Genre Fiction

Can 'no' be a declaration of love? What happens when love is savage, dangerous and all-consuming? In this gorgeous and unsettling collection, women navigate the complexities and cruelties of desire across time and place, from a medieval convent to a Victorian parlour to a 1990s high school. Intensely atmospheric, surprising and darkly funny, this collection is a richly flavoured feast from a brilliant writer in full command of the form.

Anna, better known to superheroes as the Auditor, has carved out a name for herself. Any hero unlucky enough to cross her path knows her potential and powers. Surely, success should taste sweet: she has an incredible job with lots of perks, and her boss will literally annihilate anyone who crosses her, and her greatest enemy, the former hero Supercollider, has been utterly defeated and literally ground to a pulp. But Anna still has her sights set on a greater work: destroying the Draft, the organization that makes, trains, and manages the world’s most powerful superheroes.

Nia Da Silva is dead… Dead serious about moving on from her past, from roller derby, and the traumatic injury that was a crushing blow to not just her body but her mind. Running away from her problems wasn't the fix she had hoped for. Five years later, she returns to the town that left her with permanent scars. Healing her physical wounds was the bare minimum. She'll finally have to face herself and rediscover who she's always been beneath the lies she's worn like shredded fishnets over bruised knees.

In their lovely old Cotswolds village, Janet and Susan are known to all the other villagers as “the girls”—a fixture. Partners in love and work, co-proprietors of a picturesque shop specializing in the work of local artisans and farmers, they lead an enviable, enviably settled life. So it’s no catastrophe when Sue, the younger of the two, feels the need to take a month to travel on her own, leaving Jan alone to run their stall at the Inland Waterways Rally Craft Fair.

Where do you get an abortion in 1960 Georgia, especially if your small town’s midwife goes to the same church as your parents? For seventeen-year-old Doris Steele, the answer is Atlanta, where her favorite teacher, Mrs. Lucas, calls upon her brash, wealthy childhood best friend, Sylvia, for help. While waiting to hear from the doctor who has agreed to do the procedure, Doris spends the weekend scandalized by, but drawn to, the people who move in and out of Sylvia’s orbit.

It’s simple, really. Zay has a roof over his head, food in his stomach, no bills or jobs to worry about, and he gets to lie around all day. It should be the perfect life for him, and it would be...if it wasn’t for the fact that he has to play the role of a two-legged “puppy” for his captor and his captor’s little. Zay’s unwillingness to accept his new life breeds doubt and discontent in Cammy, who’s longed for an end to his loneliness.

After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community.

Tall. Toned. Attractive. Women were drawn to her easy confidence and mystique. They wanted to be near her and would do anything for her. Sage Bristo enjoyed the attention and her reputation. But what she really needed was a woman of conviction and passion. The last thing Deanne Demore wants in her life is a modern day Don Juana. And she is not about to get caught up in a ruinous relationship. So why is she watching Sage Bristo? More importantly, why is her heart racing?

Alistair Finley has spent years concealing the truth of his illegitimacy. The bastard son of the late king and half brother to the man who now occupies the throne, Alistair fears ruination. He has never allowed himself love or companionship. Until he meets the handsome young Lord Marcus Avenleigh. Marcus has spent two years attempting to gain the notice of the king's shy secretary. Tempting Alistair out of the shadows and into his bed, however, proves a daunting task.

Meet Sofie. The history of her sexuality begins when she loses her virginity to Walter the recruitment consultant. So, naturally, she thought that things could only improve from there. But she was wrong. It seems Sofie's been wrong about a lot of things. First, she thought she was into men: wrong. Then she met Frida and thought she was set for life: wrong again. Turns out, facing up to everything she thought she knew about herself requires a lot of trial and error.

At 18, Brian, like so many other promising young gay men, arrived in New York City without much more than a love for the freedom and release from his past that it promised. But within six short years, AIDS would claim his lover, his friends, and his future. With nothing left in New York but memories of death, Brian decides to write his mother a letter asking to come back to the place, and family, he was once so desperate to escape.

When you stop fighting windmills, imaginary or otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of time on your hands. Of course, Aleksey Rider-Mikkelsen, Lord of Light Island, isn’t going to get bored. And if he did, he obviously wouldn’t join a preposterous hunt for sunken treasure with Ben and his annoying friends to keep himself entertained. He only has himself to blame, therefore, when a fun adventure suddenly turns deadly serious. There’s a reason some treasure should stay hidden.

When Myriam and Allison fall in love at a show in a run-down punk house, their relationship begins to unfold through a series of hypotheticals. What if they became mothers by finding a baby in an alley? What if the only cure for Myriam’s depression was Allison’s flesh? What if they were B-list celebrities, famous for writing a book about building healthy lesbian relationships? How much darker - or sexier - would their dynamic be if one were a power-hungry CEO, and the other her lowly employee?

Nathan’s used to being alone. Drifting from town to town following his salesman father, he seeks solace in his studies when he can’t find understanding in his own home; his father is abusive and an alcoholic and his mother would rather disappear into the background than protect him. Enter Roy. The older boy next door might have a girlfriend at school and at church, but there’s no question that they’re drawn to one another, and the two quickly become entangled in a covert relationship.

Published in 1928, Orlando is a fictional biography that spans several centuries and follows the protagonist, Orlando, an Elizabethan nobleman who undergoes a mysterious gender transformation. The novel explores themes of gender identity, fluidity and the constraints imposed by societal norms. It challenges traditional notions of gender roles and raises questions about the nature of identity and the passage of time.

A new big brother is joining the family and Blue doesn’t like him at all. He’s perfectly happy with his current big brother, Colt, and does not want to share. Worse, Colt, Jacob, and their new best friend, Malkon, are keeping a secret from him, something called Tydannon. At first, Blue thinks it must be a fantasy game, but he slowly discovers Tydannon is a real place that exists in an entirely different world. Colt, Jacob, and Malkon have been there. Blue’s dads and his Great Uncle Skye have visited Tydannon as well. Why is his entire family keeping a secret from him?

The day of the garden party should’ve been a celebration of love for Raphael and his fiancée, as they toast their engagement with their families. But for someone, it’s an opportunity to unveil the lies that have bound the family together over the years. With their nearest and dearest gathered at the family manor, as the first glass is raised, the secrets that bind them begin to crack. And what should have been the happiest day of their lives, might just end as a day they’d rather forget…

Beyond the Pale - winner of the Lambda Literary Award - tells the stories of two Jewish women living through times of darkness and inhumanity in the early 20th century, capturing their undaunted love and courage in luminous and moving prose. The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich's odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York.

Love, sex, death, family, friendship, betrayal, tenderness, brutality, sacrifice and revelation. This incendiary collection of stories from acclaimed writer Christos Tsiolkas, best-selling author of The Slap and Barracuda, takes you deep into worlds both strange and familiar, and introduces you to characters who will never let you go and situations that will haunt you forever.

The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit's best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for a quick, idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They'll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into the local dive bar like old times. But it's soon clear that this getaway only gets Kit closer to something dire and unfathomable that's been building inside her for years, ever since her sister Julie died.